


Cracked Stone

by ValmureEld



Category: Justice League (2017)
Genre: Anatomy, Aquaman whump, Arthur gets stabbed and saving him is harder than anticipated, Attempted assassination, Coma, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I'm trash for Aquaman now sorry, Injury, Medical, Medicine, Poison, Protective Barry Allen, Stabbing, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, What do you expect out of me at this point, Whump, creative medicine, discussions of anatomy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 06:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12835155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValmureEld/pseuds/ValmureEld
Summary: When Arthur shows up on the shore bleeding heavily and suffering severe infection, it's going to take the whole team to save him.Please read warnings in the notes before reading, there's some pretty heavy injury and alternate medical methods used. Everything is in the interest of healing though, nothing like torture etc.





	Cracked Stone

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I dropped my beef with DC, I really enjoyed Justice League, and Aquaman is the newest character on my favorites shelf. The team dynamic is always a favorite of mine and I spent a long time designing anatomy for Aquaman that makes sense with his abilities so I combined those things for this fic. 
> 
> I'm more of a Marvel girl so I'm mostly just along for the ride with DC. This fic is written pretty much exclusively on the cinematic universe versions of these characters. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I rated this T because I don't think it's that graphic, but what happens in terms of injury and some of the healing methods may squick some people out. 
> 
> Potential creep out factors include seriously deep stab wound, necrosis, and use of sea life to help in healing.

“He's late,” Bruce said, crossing his arms and thudding back in his seat.

“He'll come,” Diana said evenly, her feet crossed on his dash while she filed her nails. She held her hand out and scrutinized her work. “Personally I'm enjoying a moment of quiet.”

“It's not like he talks enough to actually break the quiet all that much,” Bruce muttered, staring out at the waves washing hypnotically in and out. “All he's holding up at this point is dinner.”

Diana shot him an amused glance, shaking her head. “Apparently little boys also struggle with patience.”

“I'm sorry I want a grown man to keep the meeting _he_ set up,” he said petulantly. “We're even picking him up.”

She sighed, putting her file away and taking her feet off the dash. “He just got held up. He is crossing dozens of miles of ocean. Who knows what he ran into.”

“He can swim like a torpedo that's not an excuse.”

Diana opened her mouth to retort with something else but didn't get the chance because Bruce suddenly sat up, slapping his hands on his thighs. “Finally!” he exclaimed, getting out of the car. She rolled her eyes and followed him, walking out onto the beach. The ripple that signified Arthur's arrival gave her pause though and she frowned, tilting her head.

Arthur didn't come up gracefully like he normally did. He broke the surface with a convulsive shudder, scrambling for his footing and losing it as he half limped, half crawled into the shallows. The water frothed around his legs as he braced himself, his right hand clamped tightly against his left side, his head bowed as he coughed up water that was washing back out red.

Bruce's eyes went wide and every trace of annoyance was wiped clean away. Arthur staggered, took one, two, three heavy steps forward and made it the rest of the way onto the beach before raising his head to look blearily at them both. His eyes were unfocused, his mouth open as he panted unevenly for breath. His armor glittered as water and blood gushed from his side to run down his leg.

Diana saw the way his eyes spaced out a second before they rolled back in his head but neither she or Bruce were close enough to catch him. He landed hard in the sand with a finite thud, and lay motionless. Diana was at his side a moment later, kneeling and carefully rolling him onto his back, brushing sand away from his nose and out of his beard so he wouldn't end up swallowing it. His eyes were closed and his mouth was still open, his breathing unnatural and strained.

“What in the world did that to him?” Bruce exclaimed, kneeling on Arthur's other side and carefully peeling his limp fingers away. A horrible, crack of a breach in his Atlantian armor gaped a good six inches out of his lower left side, the bloody water still oozing out of it frothy. Diana's brow furrowed and she ran her fingers into the wound, an action that made Bruce exclaim in alarm.

“What are you doing!?”

“Assessing the damage, I need to know how badly he is injured so I do not make it worse by moving him incorrectly,” she answered, feeling along the raw edge. It was very, very deep and she swallowed hard when she felt the curve of a rib—and its marrow. She pulled her hand back in a hurry and a foul, acrid smell followed the blood. “Someone stabbed him with an Atlantian spear. It is the only thing that could do this much damage,” she said, pulling her coat off and bundling it up to press against the wound.

“Exactly how much damage are we talking? And why would an Atlantian attack him?” Bruce asked, getting up as Diana bundled Arthur and lifted him into her arms. His head lolled back and blood drooled down into his beard. Bruce grimaced and reached out to support his head, turning it gently instead so it rest against Diana's shoulder as she moved him quickly back to the car.

“I don't know, but even if it was no Atlantian that turned on him it had to be an Atlantian weapon. Nothing else would be able to breach his armor—and his ribcage like that. Atlantian tissues are extremely dense, and whatever cut him not only went through skin and muscle but his ribs as well. They were cut cleanly. And the smell. That's executioner's poison,” she said grimly, leaning in to rest Arthur in the back seat.

Bruce's eyes popped. “Executioner poison? What does that entail??”

“It's a potent poison the Atlantians used to use to kill their condemned. There is no cure. But he is half human, that is saving him.” She cupped his cheek and slipped her hand beneath his jaw, feeling his pulse thud rapid and wrong against her fingers. “He needs help and I don't think a hospital will know what to do. “ She climbed in after him, settling on the floor. “I'll stay with him to keep him stable and stop the bleeding, get us back to the cave as quickly as you can.”

She didn't have to tell Bruce twice. He was already in the driver's seat and pushed the car's limits the entire way back.

“Poison aside, how is he still alive?” he asked, taking a corner with a squeal and shifting back into a higher gear. “That frothing blood, all the water he was choking up.” He shook his head, glancing in the rearview mirror to see Diana keeping pressure on Arthur's wound with one hand while she brushed his hair back with the other. “Frothing is lung damage.”

“Yes, but Atlantians can breathe water. He is incapable of drowning, only suffocating if there is not enough oxygen in the water. His body must have enough stored that, for now, he can live with only one lung functioning.”

“He can breathe water?” Bruce asked, his eyebrows in his hairline.

“Yes, how did you think he lived in Atlantis?” Diana asked, shooting him a questioning glance over her shoulder.

“I thought—well. I mean, whales hold their breath. He could be like that. Or he could have gills. I don't know.”

“No gills, not like you are imagining.” She touched his armor gently away from the wound, her brow furrowed and her eyes sad as she watched him struggle to take even half a breath. “His lungs are like gills. Fill them with air, he breathes as we do. Fill them with water, and his body will take what it needs just as naturally.”

“That's...crazy,” Bruce muttered.

“What happened??” Clark was already at the car by the time they came to a stop, the door open hardly before the wheels had locked. The kryptonian's eyes took on that intense expression they did when he was scanning someone and Diana waited a moment to pick Arthur up again, glancing at Clark as she shifted the Atlantian over to him. She was more than strong enough to carry Arthur around, but she knew he'd be more comfortable in larger arms. Clark took him without question.

“How deep is it?” she asked, climbing out of the car as Clark turned to stride inside. She caught pace with him and stayed there. Bruce wasn't far behind.

“Deep enough I don't want to risk shocking his system by running him to the infirmary any faster than this,” Clark replied, his brow furrowed as she looked at Arthur's slack face. “Most o f the bottom of his left lung is in shreds, two of his ribs have been sliced clean through and then there's the blood loss.”

“I'll get saline and oxygen out, we need to bind his wound,” Bruce said, running ahead.

Getting Arthur bandaged and settled proved much more difficult than anticipated. Simple things, like stitches and cleaning the wound properly were simply not possible. The wound went so deeply into his chest cavity that any tools to reach in and clean it would do more damage. Sewing it up wasn't an option because his skin and muscle layers were so dense needles just weren't getting through. It was an awful irony—he was too tough to be sewn but too exposed that they couldn't bear risking any more damage on the more delicate tissues inside.

Their only option then, was to wrap his ribcage up tight to stop the bleeding and further infection. Sealing off the wound to make it airtight proved unneeded as Arthur's body had somehow closed off the damaged area and allowed his remaining lung and heart to keep working, albeit a lot harder than normal.

He was still declining rapidly.

“The antibiotics are going through him like nothing,” Victor said grimly, looking from his holographic screen to Arthur where he'd been stripped down to his underclothes and laid in a bed. An IV, cruelly bound into a vessel that had been exposed by his wound was feeding him liquid and sugar and antibiotics, but they couldn't flush the infection or keep him hydrated.

“And he isn't healing,” Clark added, standing on Arthur's other side with his arms crossed. Arthur's skin glittered with fever sweat, and his brow was tense, even in his sickly sleep.

“It's been two days, we need to try something else. He should have at least started showing improvement by now,” Bruce said. There was a crackle of energy in the air and a rush of fluttering papers announced Barry's arrival.

“Hey guys wow I've missed you you wouldn't believe how different it is being at a job job you've gotta censor like, all your stories and--” He froze, staring at Arthur and pointing. “What in the world happened to him—did I miss a battle? Did you guys leave me out of a battle I thought we were supposed to go together to stuff like that.”

“No, he just showed up like this. There's nothing you can do and you've been busy settling into your job so we didn't bother telling you,” Bruce said, looking at Barry and catching the flicker of hurt. “Sorry,” he said more quietly. “Should have let you know what was going on but we've all been trying to help him round the clock and it's proving....challenging.”

Barry got closer, the rasp of Arthur's breathing apparent in the beat of silence.“Wow he's....really bad.” He looked wide-eyed at Bruce and then shoved a half-eaten protein bar in his pocket, as if he suddenly felt it was disrespectful for him to be eating in Arthur's sickroom. “He looks like he's dying...” he said quietly, looking around at the others. “Is—is he dying?”

Victor clenched his jaw like he was unsure he wanted to answer, but he did anyway. “If we can't turn him around soon, yes.”

“No,” Bruce retorted, uncrossing his arms and going to the computer nearby. “Victor, Diana, Clark, you guys each have a piece of what we need to help him. Work together. Figure this out, I'm not watching him go out like this.”

“Why...why can't we ask for help from his own people?” Barry asked. “He's not fully human, right? You guys gave it a good try, why not take him back to Atlantis?”

“Because someone close to him may have done this,” Diana said gently, touching Barry's arm when he looked even more alarmed. She then congregated with the two others around Bruce.

“Victor,” Bruce addressed, turning to the cyborg. “You have access to all of human medical history. Including, I bet, illegal experiments history has managed to bury. Diana, you know about Atlantian physiology, and Clark can give us real time feedback on what the wound looks like with an accuracy my sensors can't. We know he's overheated, dehydrated, and the oxygen is ground we're losing every day because even though his body is trying to heal, the toxin is still killing lung tissue. What do we do?”

“The only reason he's survived this long is because his body is exceptionally good at storing oxygen in his muscles and blood. Like a whale or seal can for diving,” Victor began, swiping through screens.

Bruce gave Diana I told you so eyebrows and she shot him a not now look.

“But those stores are running out, even comatose as he is. He isn't taking in oxygen well enough from the air. Every land-based treatment we know isn't working. So we need to put him in the water.”

“We can't take him back to the sea,” Bruce repeated, gesturing as he sat back in his chair.

“Then bring the sea to him, because now you've his heart to worry about as well.” Everyone turned to see Alfred, who was straightening up next to Arthur and pulling a stethoscope from his ears. He lay it around his neck and looked at them all with very serious, dark eyes. “It's been working harder every day, and with the way his body is straining itself it is possible he will have some kind of an attack. If any part of his heart muscle dies, he may not have the strength to recover. Even if he does heal, he will be unable to dive the way he used to.”

Bruce's eyebrows shot up. “Since when are you a cardiologist, Alfred?”

“Since you refused to see one,” Alfred said flatly, crossing his arms. “I learned a great deal on the nights when you'd passed out from your wounds and varying states of exhaustion, dehydration and malnourishment.”

Bruce shut his mouth and ducked his head, and Alfred continued, resting the tips of his fingers on Arthur's chest as it rose again with an exhausted breath.

“Diana says his tissues are dense, and we know he's much heavier than a human his size. His own weight is working against him. Clark said his lung is decaying, and to be totally honest I didn't need him to tell me that because you can smell it. Victor tells me the antibiotics are losing and he's clearly struggling more and more to breathe.” He gestured at Victor. “You know where I'm going with this, enlighten them will you?”

“Get a vat of salt water, oxygenate it, put him under,” Victor said, his eyes lighting as his brain did searches and ran calculations. “We can regulate his temperature through water therapy, ease some of the strain on his breathing because he will be less affected by gravity, and the salt will start to kill the infection.”

Bruce's eyebrows went up and he looked around at his other two consultants. “Any reason this would be a step backward?”

Diana shook her head. “None.”

“Okay. Victor, help me get this together.”

Even with all of Bruce's money and Victor's control over transport technology, getting the tank together and ready took time. Diana and Clark both kept busy helping to expedite the process but certain things had to be manufactured so even Clark's offer to just zip over and grab things only went so far.

With the others so preoccupied, Arthur would have been on his own, nothing but Victor's remote monitoring to keep him company. That was something Barry, however, wouldn't allow.

“I was in a coma you know,” he said, sitting next to the much larger man's bed with his knees drawn up, resting his chin on them as he talked. “Got struck by lightning, spent a while like that—people talk about what it's like to be in a coma but they don't know. You can still hear, at least sometimes.”

He shifted and looked at Arthur's face, which had passed into a slack unconscious. They'd dared to up his morphine by five times and that at least seemed to be helping. His heartbeat had become slightly less strained with the lack of pain. “You can hear people talk about how your body is falling apart, how you're probably not going to make it, and they say it right over you like you're not even there. Kinda puts a dent in your willingness to wake up.”

He reached out, resting a hand on Arthur's arm and patting it awkwardly. “Well, I want you to wake up and if I could do it so can you. You're still looking pretty hardy on this side of things so....just, keep working at it. I know you were stabbed with a huge spear—like, huge, but I got struck by lightning so it's...comprable.”

He lapsed into uncertain silence, but kept his hand on Arthur's arm.

Four hours later, just after midnight when Alfred returned to check on the individual he now considered his patient, he found Barry asleep with his head on Arthur's mattress and his hand still on his arm. Arthur hadn't moved at all to indicate he was aware he wasn't alone, but Alfred gave a small smile anyway. He pulled a blanket from the nearby cabinet and spread it across Barry's shoulders, patting his back as he rounded the bed to examine Arthur's condition himself. He also knew that Victor was keeping tabs from a distance, but after dozens of sleepless nights watching over Bruce he always found that a human touch gave the sick person more to fight for than a few metal discs and some wires.

“Hello Arthur,” Alfred whispered, fitting the stethoscope to his ears and placing the bell against his patient's chest. “Still ticking away I see, steady as the tide,” he smiled at his own joke, even though a line of worry at what he heard folded itself between his brows. He shifted the bell to listen to a different portion of the Atlantian heart, sighing.

“You're holding your own at least,” he muttered, moving over to listen to the lung that was still managing to function. Arthur's heartbeat was startlingly palpable and loud, something that would have worried Alfred more had he not learned near the beginning that part of his adaptations to the sea included an enlarged heart. Still, it was working too hard even for Arthur, and Alfred feared how long it would be able to keep up.

“Just hang on a bit longer, we'll get you back in the water and things should start to feel better for you,” he said, pulling away and shifting the stethoscope to rest around his neck before feeling the pulse at Arthur's throat and timing it against his watch. “You're in good hands,” he continued, glancing up at Barry and over at the light in the next room where the others were working. “That much I can promise you.”

The vat was finished late the next day, and they quickly shifted him into it. Barry had left while they moved him, citing the need for food and to drop off some paperwork at work, but he was conveniently back the moment they finally settled Arthur and submerged him completely.

They'd built a huge, glass tank with a metal bottom that let them monitor all kinds of data without sticking more sensors to Arthur's skin. Said data was fed constantly both to Victor and to several lights and screens across the base. Bubbles churned gently through the constant cycle of cool water, making sure it was as oxygen rich as possible. Barry watched with a morbid fascination as Diana and Clark gently lowered Arthur under, his wound no longer bound. He bent so near the tank his nose was almost touching it, staring intently at Arthur's face.

“He—uh, is he supposed to breathe at all?”

“Give him a moment,” Diana said, resting her hand on the glass edge.

At first, Arthur didn't react to being submerged. He just lay there, hair waving gently in the current, blood bleeding into the clear water like dye.

Then he exhaled, a rush of bubbles breaking the surface. He paused, and then his head tilted back just a bit and he took in a great lungful of water.

Barry flinched, closing one eye and grimacing as he continued to watch with the other. “Ohmygosh that looks so painful.”

“He's alright, he's built for that,” Diana assured as they all watched his chest fall again, this time a jet of water barely visible as it came from his nose.

“See, I know that logically but I got water up my nose the last time I took a bath so that can't not look just, horribly uncomfortable.”

“Well, his body temperature is already dropping,” Bruce announced, looking from the screen at the end of the tank up at the rest of them.

“And his heart seems to be easing up a little,” Victor added. “I think this was a step in the right direction.”

Barry twitched and was suddenly on the other side of the tank, standing next to Diana. He made a hissing sound through his teeth, straightening up and looking pale. “Did you guys mean to leave the bandage off because--” he pointed at the horrible, angry crack of a wound in Arthur's side. “That looks way worse than even I was picturing.”

“The salt has to get inside, or the infection will be trapped,” Victor reasoned. Even he looked uneasy. “It's not pretty but yeah, this is his best bet for right now. We have to flush the wound. The cycle we have programmed into the bed will make sure the tank doesn't get poisoned as well.”

“Oh—okay, if you guys are sure,” Barry said, his brow furrowed. He swallowed convulsively and twitched again, appearing on the other side. “I'm just going to—stay on this side of him then.”

And stay he did. Barry had a hard time sitting in one place just for dinner, or to get from A to B under any transport power but his own, and yet he stayed for hours on the floor at Arthur's side.

It was very late when Diana came back to the infirmary, her robe draped around her shoulders and her need for a shower forefront in her mind. She and Bruce had decided to train together to pass some time and relieve tension, and Clark had gone home to Lois. Victor was doing some work two rooms over, updating Bruce's mainframe. They all needed something to focus on while they waited for Arthur's condition to change, and so the infirmary was dark and empty, only the blue glow from the vat still present.

Or that's what she'd thought. Barry hadn't gone anywhere.

Diana paused, pressing her lips together as she took in the scene. Barry was curled up on a makeshift cushion, his head resting against the cool glass of the tank, his eyes closed. His arms were crossed and even though his position was awkward it was plain he'd been asleep for a little while because some drool had made its way out of the corner of his mouth. She smiled sadly and approached him, kneeling at his side and resting a hand on his shoulder. He startled awake and swiped clumsily at the drool, blinking at her a few times before recognition set in.

“Hi,” he said, blinking once more and glancing at Arthur before looking back at her. “Do you want the seat?”

Her eyes crinkled as her expression softened but she shook her head. “No Barry, I'm fine. Why haven't you gone home? I thought you had to work in the morning? Arthur is in good hands, we will call you the moment something changes.”

Barry straightened up, clearing his throat and looking at the tank as he scratched behind one ear. Diana knew he was avoiding looking at her, but she waited patiently anyway. “I told them I couldn't come in for a couple days.” He shrugged but the action was so fast it was more like a twitch. “Family emergency.”

Diana's shoulders fell at that but she didn't interrupt.

“And, I know I said that I didn't hear anything besides “we're all gonna die” when he sat on your lasso but that was...uh, that was a lie.” He glanced at her like she was going to chastise him for lying before tapping his foot in a nervous vibration and looking back at the tank again. “I heard what he said. About being young, not wanting to die and, I've been there. I was in a coma everybody thought I was never coming out of, and it just, was better when someone was there and not talking about me like a broken machine. I've been alone a lot and...and it's just harder when you're alone so I figured he shouldn't be.” He shrugged again and Diana felt her heart swell. She squeezed Barry's arm reassuringly and got up.

“Don't worry, I won't tell him you remember,” she teased gently. “I think it is beautiful you want to stay with him. If I bring you a cot will you at least lay down?”

Barry flushed and still wouldn't look at her, but he nodded in a jerky affirmative.

Arthur did improve, but not at the rate they were hoping.

“He's still struggling with the infection,” Victor explained on day three of the water therapy. “His temperature is more stable, so is oxygenation, but what he really needs is for all the dead stuff to be cleaned out.”

“You're talking surgery,” Bruce said. “Do we have any breakthroughs that could allow for something like that?”

Victor sighed, shaking his head. “No.”

“And we need to be delicate,” Clark said, hands on his hips. “More than half of his left lung is eaten away at this point. He can't afford to lose any healthy tissue.”

“If we can clear away the dead stuff, can he regenerate that much loss or do we need to start talking robotics?” Bruce asked, looking from Victor to Diana.

“No, Atlantian healing abilities are extraordinary—if we can get him back to strength he should be able to regenerate the lung,” Diana said, her voice confident.

“So we get the dead stuff out, keep up with the water therapy, and he has a shot,” Bruce clarified, and the others nodded.

“Seems that way,” Victor said.

“I think I have an idea.”

Two hours later, and Bruce approached the tank with a bucket in hand. Barry straightened up from his spot on the floor where he'd been reading _Moby Dick_ out loud. Bruce raised his eyebrow when he saw the title and Barry gave another nervous jerk of a shrug.

“I was trying to read him something he might at least find familiar...?” he said, grimacing and putting the book aside. “20/20 I probably should have just grabbed _Game of Thrones_ or something. He seems chill with violence. What's in the bucket?”

“An idea,” he said, tipping it over and pouring a wash of water and shrimp into the vat. Barry and the others drew around to watch as dozens of small, white and red shrimp began swimming, adjusting quickly to the turbulence and moving across Arthur's body.

“Are you...expecting him to eat them?” Barry ventured, glancing at Bruce out of the corner of his eye like he'd lost his mind.

“I'm expecting them, to eat the infection,” Bruce said, walking around to the side where Arthur's injury was visible. Sure enough, the shrimp were congregating there, using sharp, white, toothpick like front legs to dig gently at the edges and bring pieces of dead flesh to their mouths. Arthur was still soundly under, this time chemically to keep him from feeling anything, so he didn't react to the cleaning.

“ ** _Lysmata amboinensis_** ,” Victor said, his eyebrows going up. “Also known as Pacific cleaner shrimp. That was inspired.”

“Thank you.”

“I'm not following,” Barry said, peering over Arthur's body and sitting very quickly back down when one of the shrimp disappeared into the wound. He looked like he was going to be sick. “Those look a lot like bugs and one of them is now _inside_ him how is this helping??”

“Ancient medics used to pack open wounds with maggots. They ate dead flesh and infection, leaving healthy tissues behind. These are the maggots of the sea,” Bruce explained, watching as two more shrimp went into the crack of Arthur's chest cavity. “They won't eat anything alive, but they'll clean out all the dead tissue and the last of the infection. They know how to be a lot more precise than any scalpel.”

“Okay that's really disgusting and kinda cool at the same time but why are some of them over here too--” Barry asked, jerking his hand away from the glass as one swam past him to settle on Arthur's arm. It began digging at invisible particles, moving meticulously up one of the stripes of black ink.

“They eat dead skin cells too. Stuff that gets caught in your fingernails, you know. They're very thorough.”

Barry hummed, his eyes still fixed on the shrimp before he finally shook his head. “Nope, no, can't do it. They're swarming him, it's weird. One just ate something out of his beard, I'm gonna go away for a while and you can tell me when you're done with the shrimp surgery.”

There was so much damage it took the shrimp two days to clean it all out. By the time they stopped eating and began just drifting around in the water or hiding in his hair, his stats had improved drastically and Clark reported around a broad smile that lung regeneration was already happening. Finally feeling like they'd gained some traction, Bruce changed and upped the IVs, trying to give Arthur's body all the nutrients and vitamins he could to aid the process.

After that the healing went remarkably quickly. Bruce left the shrimp be, deciding they could only help, and Barry eventually came back to his post when Arthur's wound started to knit itself back up. They finally decided it was safe to take him off the heavy medication that was keeping him unconscious, and after that it was just a waiting game on when he'd wake up.

Barry, predictably, was the one who was there when he finally did. He was slumped against the tank, as had become his habit, only this time he'd brought a pillow. One moment he was sleeping peacefully and the next he came sputtering awake in a panic because a slosh of cold water and shrimp went cascading over his head and shoulders. He flailed and fell backwards, speeding back to his feet and flinging the unfortunate shrimp off of him in the process. He shuddered and shook his hair out. “Ohhh that was awful nope do not like shrimp,” he declared, before his situation clicked. His eyes went wide and a grin lit his face. “You're awake!!”

“Ughhhhh,” Arthur groaned, resting his head in his hand. He was sitting up in the tank, his legs bent and his back bowed, one arm resting on the edge. “Are you sure I'm not dead? I feel like crap.”

“Yeah, well for about a week you looked like crap, and we were afraid you would die but nope--” he looked at the monitor ticking a rapid heartbeat across the screen in vibrant green. “Not dead,” he said emphatically, zipping around to the other side where the discolored skin from the healing wound was visible. “You look much better by the way—now that I can't see...” he gestured at Arthur's side. “Your insides.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow and lifted his arm, looking down his side and touching the healing skin with his free hand. He swore very loudly. "He messed up my tattoo!!”

“You're not mad he stabbed you...?” Barry ventured.

“Yes I'm pissed he stabbed me but this is insult on top of injury!” Arthur declared, gesturing at the broken lines of ink before dropping his arm with a splash. More water and shrimp sloshed onto the floor and he peered over the side, grimacing. “Sorry little buddies,” he apologized to the shrimp, reaching down to catch them on his fingers and place them back in the vat.

Barry made a face as Arthur handled the shrimp.“Who did stab you, by the way? We've all been wondering.”

The others were coming in now, including Alfred, who was looking quietly proud and relieved. Clark was grinning and knelt by the tank, resting a hand on Arthur's shoulder. “Looking good, glad to have you back with us. Maybe we should start getting T-shirts for those of us who came back from the dead.”

Arthur snorted, shooting Clark a sidelong glance. “The kid says I didn't die but it kinda feels like it.”

“You were close for several days,” Bruce admitted, arms folded as he stood at the foot of the tank. “You having trouble breathing still?”

“Not so much,” Arthur said, looking down at the wound again. This time he clasped the IV that was still buried in his chest and grit his teeth, moving to pull it out. Diana grabbed his wrist and shot him a warning look.

“Arthur, don't we will take it out when we are certain you no longer need it.”

“I don't need it, and it itches like crazy,” Arthur said matter of factly, making eye contact with her and pulling it out in one quick tug as he did so. He swore loudly, doubling up and pressing his hand into the wound as the shrimp swam through the cloud of blood in a panic.

Diana huffed in exasperation, throwing her hands up. “That is what you get, isn't it?”

“I'm fine,” Arthur said through grit teeth.

“You are better, but you aren't fine,” Victor said, his voice ever even. “Who did this to you?”

“It doesn't matter,” he said tersely, sitting back up and shifting in the tank so he could rest his back against the head of it. He heaved a heavy sigh and rest his head back, closing his eyes. “I probably had it coming.”

“Executioner's poison?” Diana asked, her brow furrowed in disagreement. “Nobody deserves that. What is going on, Orin?”

He opened his eyes and shot her a glare. “Don't call me that.”

Diana ducked her head, kneeling next to Clark by the tank. “My apologies, Arthur. Why don't you want to tell us who attacked you?”

“Because it isn't your problem,” he muttered, staring into the water and letting a shrimp climb onto his hand. “It's mine.”

“We're a team now. We share problems,” Bruce reasoned, and Alfred snorted softly.

“Not problems like this. I've avoided doing what Atlantis told me to do a good portion of my life. I'm supposed to be the crown prince but never wanted it, and for a while people were okay with that. Some of them were pissed at me, some of them didn't care. Some of them, apparently, were glad because when I finally decided to wear the armor and use the trident...well.” He gestured at his side. “Political disagreements get ugly under water.”

“You mean you were attacked by someone who doesn't want you on the throne?” Clark clarified, his brow furrowed.

“A few someones. And it doesn't matter that I wasn't going for the throne. There's a group of extremists who are all about the purity of blood and the rights of the dignity of Atlantis--” he waved a hand, sighing and looking sad for all his usual pretending. “Basically seeing a dirty half blood like myself wearing the royal armor was just too much.”

“That's...messed up,” Barry said quietly.

Arthur snorted. “Yeah. Well...you wanted to know.”

“Are you still in danger if you return?” Diana asked, ever the planning diplomat. “Mera wasn't part of this...was she?”

He shook his head. “No, of course not. She's the one who gave me the trident and told me it was my duty to go after Steppenwolf. Those extremists are a problem for her too. She's probably taken care of them already.”

“Alright well if she hasn't, we have your back,” Diana assured. Arthur gave her an odd look but he nodded, pressing his lips together.  
There was a beat of rough silence before he cleared his throat and shifted to get up. “Thanks...for this,” he said awkwardly. “You guys got pretty creative looks like.”

“Yeah, well, we're nothing if not creative,” Bruce said with a small smile.

“Touche, bat boy,” Arthur grinned, heaving himself up finally as Bruce rolled his eyes. “Think we can get creative with food next? And after that I'm finding a decent tattoo parlor.”

**Author's Note:**

> Cleaner shrimp are adorable, gentle things that will actually climb all over your hand and eat dead skin and things. They had a tank of them at an aquarium I went to and I was endlessly delighted by them. They are exceedingly gentle and sometimes dig hard enough that you'd expect them to go too far and hurt--but they never do. They know exactly when to stop and where to go and what's supposed to be there and what's not. It's awesome.


End file.
